Jail for cruelty mother

A mother who "blighted" the lives of her children by subjecting them to a six-year campaign of cruelty has been jailed for 18 months.

Linda Clappison, aged 46, from Keyingham Marsh, East Yorkshire, was found guilty of two counts of child cruelty at a trial at Hull Crown Court last month.

Sentencing Clappison, Judge Michael Mettyear, the Recorder of Hull, described the case as "tragic" and praised the "super" children, who gave evidence against their mother at the trial.

The trial heard that the mother-of-four forced her two youngest children to work for gypsies as slaves after falling under the spell of a fortune teller. Within weeks of the meeting, Clappison started locking her son and daughter, then aged 10 and six, in their rooms and assaulting them.

She fed them only sandwiches and took the lightbulbs, toys and all mattresses and bedding from their rooms, leaving them needing hospital treatment for frostbite. Her son, Andrew Clappison, now 18, told the trial: "We were treated like dogs."

The court heard that Clappison had still not admitted the offences, instead insisting that her children were liars. Jailing Clappison to concurrent sentences of 18 months for each charge, Judge Mettyear said: "You blighted the lives of those children and only custody can be justified."

Andrew Clappison who was "treated like a dog" by his mother. Credit: Hull News